Favorite people #1

Hopefully, this will evolve into a theme that I revisit in future posts.

I want to tell you about one of my favorite people- my grandma, my pau-pau. She lived through the Japanses invasion of China, a devasting economic depression, the Cultural Revolution (and all the requisite institutional, social, personal and financial upheavals that came with it), my grandfather's various adulterous affairs, the move to a new country that spoke a really bizarre language (English), all the while learning how to grow up, raise a family, grow old. She was a beautiful painter, an avid learner, a superb gardener, and an intrepid explorer. For someone who knew very little English (her vocabulary consisted of hello, goodbye, how much, thank you and good luck), she knew more about the bus system in NYC than I did. There is a dish that she invented that I just love. She basically shreds a boiled chicken and seasons it with ginger salt. She calls this her version of salt-baked chicken. I have yet to figure out the connection between the two. i learned from her that it really doesn't matter what other people think, that social conventions don't have to matter that much, that if you learn something, they can never take that away from you and you should do something because it is interesting and fun.

She is pretty old these days. Or at least her body and her mind really shows it. I used to cry a lot thinking about loosing her. I'd miss her a lot. In a way, she is sort of gone already. I don't think she remembers me anymore. What does it means to have a relationship with some who doesn't know me? I hung out with her two weekends ago- she seemed to enjoy the social interaction. My dad asked me if she remembered who I was. I told him I didn't ask and I really don't care. My guess is that she doesn't but I didn't see what was the need to ask her. It would cause me pain and probably her some embarassment and pain about being senile and old. I still love her a lot.

Oh, this ended up being a bit sadder than I expected. Maybe future posts in this theme won't have to carry this sad ending with it.

old people

I have such and affection for old people. I think they are really cool. Sometimes I think they are really cute but then I remind myself that is a pretty darn condescending way to think about old people. That is like saying they are like fuzzy pink stuffed bunny rabbits that are harmless, simplistic and pretty dumb.

I saw this old lady in front of my building the other day. She had super long peppered hair, a black cold weather jacket that was rolled up at the sleeves and a super brightly patterned long skirt. It has this crazy, loud pattern of green, red, yellow, blue shaped outlined in black.

I like old people who wear whatever the hell they want, say whatever the hell they want (well, except when they just say downright mean things just because they want to cause someone hurt), and do things because they want to or because they are fun.

When I was in college, I wanted to be the old lady who wore the mohair cardigan that had mothballs in her pockets. That was until my asthma came back (a product of living in NYC during 2001) and I had an asthma attack after a mothball incident. I need to find a new thing to put in my pockets.

speed demon and emergency exits

So I had this really wonderful dream last night. I was stuck in some building that had some evil bad people controlling it. I was part of a group of people who sort of became their hostages- well, they knew we were in the building but they hadn't gotten to rounding us up and doing bad stuff to us yet. They were in no rush, they had control of the building and all major access points, so they thought they'd get us eventually. A few of us (I think three) decided to take the risk of breaking out of the building by riding down the emergency exit stairwell on a tandem bike. It was so much fun going down the stairs and swinging around the turns. We went really fast. Eventually, we made it out of the building (we were too fast for them) and somehow got on to this highway. On the highway, we were going like 80 to 100 mph. It was exciting and a little tense but oh-so-much fun! It was cool having a dream that was just a little tense but I was still confident that I would be able to get out and would be okay.

I had another dream a while back about trying to escape from some bad people in a building too. It also involved running down the emergency exit stairs.


Oh, another fun thing to note. A friend of mine went to hear the Dalai Lama speak at the Neuroscience Conference in DC (she was presenting at the conference). She said he was pretty darn cool, has a sense of humor, and sounded just like Yoda!

missionary work

I am in the process of convincing my friend to start a videoblog. She has a great sense of style and a really fun sense of humor. Initially, I thought she could do like a martha stewart-ish type of thing. but am rethinking this. She recently had a decoration issue- where to put a particular painting she just bought in her apartment- that I thought would make a great video post. We could go through the process with her.

I am pretty excited about this. If this conversion is successful, I may have just put me one step closer on my path toward vlog-heaven.

Sharing a diary

Sharing a computer with someone is like sharing a diary. You bump against each other's personal business all the time and in unexpected ways. My husband recently had to borrow a computer from work because he had to send his laptop back to Apple to get it fixed. Since his computer was on, and I was too lazy to turn on my computer, I used his to attempt a post to my blog. During that weekend, we discovered that he had a bug bite that swelled suspiciously like a bedbug bug (needless to say, we were pretty concerned about it since we thought the ordeal was over). I wrote about how we were hoping that whatever bug bit him was a homosexual male with vestigal sex organs. Well, that particular weekend, i couldn't post on this blog at all. I think Blogger was doing some maintainence work that ended up lasting all weekend. I did a whole bunch of cut and pastes that didn't work, gave up, turned off the computer and promptly forgot about the whole thing. In using the borrowed computer, my husband needed to create some documents that also involved cutting and pasting some things for work. In the process, he ended up pasting in my post about homosexual bedbugs into his documents. As it turns out, his boss saw the comment and was a bit confused about why she was being told about homosexual bedbugs with vestigial sex organs.

So, this is a warning to all- be careful how you share your diary.

Post note: Of course I could always put everything I do under a security lock wherein I am the only one with the password, but really, I am too lazy for that.

lone outpost

It is interesting trying to keep up this blog. I have been doing it for a couple of weeks but have not told anyone (except my husband) that I am keeping a blog. I keep waiting for someone to read this site and post a comment but no posts yet. I could tell people about it- encourage them to come and visit this site. But I want to see who ends up coming here by accident. It kind of makes me feel like the lone frontiers woman at the far away outpost that is past the edge of civilization.
Maybe one day some pony express rider will come out my way and connect me with the rest of the world.